Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD49 → Blood of Beasts
By jimbly
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 77 | 3.92 | 28 | |
| Fun | 115 | 3.75 | 28 | |
| Innovation | 117 | 3.78 | 28 | |
| Theme | 270 | 3.57 | 28 | |
| Graphics | 114 | 3.88 | 28 | |
| Humor | 239 | 2.84 | 27 | |
| Mood | 167 | 3.48 | 28 |
Nice curved screen effect makes me feel like im playing on an old crt screen :D The game is surprisingly fun. I only found it weird how I can't leave resources behind? I always have to drain my vials and put in the remaining new blood. Or maybe I'm missing some input somewhere?
Very impressive, especially considering the limited resources/time you had at your disposal. Probably the best use of a single battery charge I've ever seen! :wink:
Thanks for playing! @barrier Yeah, you must process all essence before continuing. With two vials it's a bit of a pain, and maybe not great gameplay, with more it's a bit of an interesting choice, instead of just hanging on to whatever you've got.
Fun game! I liked old school ascii graphics. The fun loop keeps on giving which is neat. Thanks!
@boon Glad you liked it and got into it!
I liked the graphics of the game and I think it has a lot of potential. For instance if you go hunting that you are dropped in a world to really look for animals (a bit like pokemon). But considering the time you had it is very impressive!
Nice compo entry ! I got shredded by a L2 volatile essence when I thought I finally had a good grip on the game :( R.I.P my ticket home it wuz close !!
You provided a nice relaxing mood and it was really enjoyable with a morning coffee. Also good job for making this in a single battery charge. I just wish it had a bit more RPG mechanics, like if possessed essences had impact on battle performances.
I really liked the old school style, and the game was fun to play! It was really easy to learn and understand what was going on and it was nice to have a clear goal, from the start. It did get a little repetitive afer a while and it would be nice to be able to leave behinf essence that you dont need, so you dont have to sacrifice essence so often, just to go back to town.
@bluecalx Thanks for playing, and glad you made it so far! Yeah, the volatile essences were a bit rough, I should have toned them down a bit, but I was trying to shove in the "unstable" theme ^_^. Probably their damage should have just been their volatility percent or something, so you could make a more educated choice on whether to risk it ("90% chance of 90 damage, but I can take it, let's risk it! Ouch." but at least no death) I *think* if you play the post-compo link, it might resume from immediately before you died, due to a "bug" with saving, I guess, if you want to "finish" it ;).
@eternalxp Glad to here you were able to learn and understand what was going on! I was worried about that, since it's basically just a wall of text menus, so I did try to add a bunch of hints at the beginning to walk through how to get started, so I guess they worked =).
Great game! Loving the concept and presentation. Probably going to play this some more inbetween doing some other things
The game was nice but I couldn't see how to progress when I had 2 vials I wanted
BloodOfBeasts.jpg
This is my favorite game I've played so far! Took me well over an hour to finally finish the game. The esthetics took me back in time to when computers where slow and graphics was mostly about imagination.
@meritcoding Thanks for playing! To progress you need to always process all essence, so, when you have only two vials, that usually means keeping only one you had before, and one of the new ones found (whichever you put in last).
@denatus Congrats! I'm really happy you enjoyed it enough to play all the way to the end, I think you're the first one to finish it.
Hah! Good ol' Perfect DOS VGA 437.
Excellent aesthetic and font choice aside, this is a really well-designed game. I spent at least half an hour playing without even realising it.
@arbe Glad you enjoyed it, and thanks for playing!
Really well made considering you only had 48 hours to make.
I love this game maybe one of the best games on the jam I've played so far!!!
@alekzandar @shea-kelly Thanks for playing, and glad you enjoyed it so much!
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I made it!
The core concept is really nice. While it is a little intricated, it is also easy to grasp. I like it. The CTR distortion also creates a nice nostalgic vibe.
My only complain is the absence of sound. A chiptune like song would really improve the atmosphere of the game.
Excellent job on this entry!
@derek-volker Thanks for playing, and nice job winning! Yeah, some music would be good, but, as usual, I always put that at the end of the priority list and didn't get to it here. Also, was going for a BBS/played over modem feel, and those definitely didn't have sound ^_^. Just pop a tape in the cassette deck you've got sitting next to your computer for some music! :P
I love the mood and feel of the game, but it is very word heavy and confusing, I found myself just following the tips for a long time. I love the general aesthetic of the game though.
@its-capp Thanks for playing! That makes me glad I added the tips, I think most players would have been *completely* lost without them ^_^.
The art style and screen effect are amazing! The game mechanics are really addictive. I had a great time playing. I did not expect magenta to be so explosive and that it will do so much damage :)
This is truly a blast from the past. You've done an excellent job of recreating the feel of some of those old BBS games. I had nearly forgotten about them. The only suggestion I have to make is to simplify the gameplay. It took me quite some time to figure out what to do, how to sell things and etc. On the other hand, it may be just that I’m slow to learn. So, take that with a grain of salt. Overall, a very good entry.
Wow wow wow! I love the entire vibe of this game. Plus I was able to play it on my phone via web browser. There is quite the learning curve but once you get it the game becomes incredible! Gonna come back and play more for sure!
Fun an very polished game! Loveeee the text based UI! So old school!!!! Fun resource management gameplay with a nice tutorial to ease the player into the mechanics. Great job!
@gamebuilder Glad you liked it! Yeah, the gameplay became a bit more complicated than I originally intended, it definitely has a bit of a learning curve, hopefully the hints that sometimes show up help you along =).
@zimny11 Heh, all of the explosions do between 1 and 99 damage, which was is really rough when you're not expecting it, I should have made those a little more forgiving (in theory you could be at 99 health and have a 1% chance of explosion and get a game over, although you'd have to be pretty unlucky -_-).
@coryru Glad you enjoyed it, and glad it works on your phone! A lot of the vibe and mobile usability is just part of the terminal emulator in my engine, but it's pretty important for this kind of game, and I know whenever I post a link on any other site most people visit it on a phone, so it better just work =).
Solid game dude! loving it! Not finished with it yet, still making my way through the wilderness bustin mobs and crafting crystals and getting dough for my trip home. Cant really find anything to give critique on, everything is well constructed and works great! Love the "CRT"? effect you plonked on there :kissing: :ok_hand:
Only thing I'm having any issue with is trading upgrades at the refiner for crystals, couldnt trade for the L1 > L2 vial for L2 Greelac, had less than 5k coins and tried, just got the msg, "You can't afford this". Havent tried the other trades, still gathering for them
...10 minutes after posting this ^^ Bruh!.png
@kekkodude Glad you're liking it! Hmm, I just tested the vial upgrade for crystals, and it *seems* to work in an isolated test, are you sure you've got a L2 Greelac and not 2 L1 Greelac or something?
Had one when testing, I'm certain.. like 50-80% sure haha, gonna give it another go tomorrow and check! > "it seems to work in an isolated test, are you sure you’ve got a L2 Greelac and not 2 L1 Greelac or something?"
@kekkodude Sounds good, if it reproduces again, let me know =).
Kind of a cheat, but, if you use the post-compo link, and "Continue Game", it'll continue from right before where you died ^_^.
> The Draw
Now that's a name I haven't heard for a while...
I love the mood and atmosphere! So cool text game!
i enjoyed playing this for a while, the MUD feel is perfect, the crt filter and the whole UI is executed very nicely.
I like the risk vs reward here, in the end I underestimated the risk and got killed while having 39k in my account (so close!)
fits the theme perfectly, enjoyed my essence collecting adventure a lot
after some time i turned off the modem just to move trough the menus faster but at the beginning it was a perfect mood setter
would love some lo-fi audio cues for each scene/event! i imagine the various crystal and beasts sounds
it annoyed me a bit that after i filled or drained the vial it auto-jumped to the first one in the menu, often after draining i wanted to fill the same vial and i had to move again trough the list, just a minor inconvenience
very nice entry! :muscle:
Nice, fun little game bringing some good amount nostalgia! (Using an US Robotics modem!) I like how you went around your time constraints and focused on the right things. I want to play it a little more later today (to complete it!), but so far it felt quite well-balanced (which is always a big thing for compo games).
@ic-rainbow Heh, yeah, I actually tried a few "modern" ANSI art editors, and they were lacking (no "fonts"!), I ended up just running *TheDraw* in DOSBox, which was fun =).
@aerloth Glad you enjoyed it, and you were so close! Losing location on the vial menu sounds like a bit of a bug, I think I was always just using the 1-5 hotkeys for selecting vials, so didn't notice that one, good catch ^_^.
@lmb Glad you enjoyed it. I did spend a while in the past trying to find the perfect nostalgia modem brands to use for that menu, but it's hard to say what actually resonates with different people, glad that one did =).
@coolestdoggie Thanks for playing and glad you enjoyed it!
@jimbly I used the post-compo version cheat to continue as my brain would not let me just abandon the adventure (awesome that it's possible) :D
Hotkeys are probably the way to go but my brain refused to accept them and I got into a nice rhythm with arrows and enter key
@jimbly
> I did spend a while in the past trying to find the perfect nostalgia modem brands to use for that menu, but it’s hard to say what actually resonates with different people
These little obscure references are not the kind of thing you can optimize much to reach larger audiences. Players should be able to play the game without getting these references, and you are probably better off not relying on these references for an enjoyable experience. But you create magic moments for those few who get the references.
Well, at least that's my perception. Again, nice job!
Hey again! Sorry, yesterday got a bit hectic so i forgot to get back to you, but! i did get to testing out what i thought was a bug, and it seems to be working just fine! :wink:
The way it works got me thinking though, wished i was able to choose whether to spend crystals or coins for the upgrades haha. Tiiiny detail i know, but i was hording crystals and wanted to just spend the coins i had gathered but since i had a the required crystal i was forced to do the trade.
@kekkodude The prices of the crystals are such that it's unlikely that you'd ever want to actually spend coins if you have the crystals, though I guess there's like a 5% chance the crystals can sell for more, so if you're hoarding then it makes some sense ^_^. Maybe I should have just made that 0% so spending crystals is always the better deal ;).